


Ludo

by thedevilchicken



Category: The Expendables (Movies)
Genre: Competition, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Showers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 08:48:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6698026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, they turn just about everything into a competition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ludo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linndechir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/gifts).



Sometimes, they turn just about everything into a competition. 

Barney's best at the firing range. They're members of a gun club like good law-abiding citizens and they shoot handguns downtown wearing the proper ear protection so Barney's delicate, ageing ears won't ring after, or at least that's what Lee says about it. Hell, it's not like they've both set off more explosions and witnessed more shootings and assorted combat-related crap to fill ten really shitty lifetimes, or like Lee was deaf for three days after the thing with the car bomb in Laos last year, so who needs ear protection anyhow! They shoot for a good half hour or so pretty solid, till Barney's bum hand's aching like a son of a bitch and okay, so Lee's not bad at it, not by a long shot. It's just that Barney's better. 

There's an outdoor range outside of town that some shady old buddy of Gunnar's owns where they shoot rifles and machine guns and, just every now and then, the occasional rocket launcher. They stretch out on their bellies in the dirt and Lee bitches about getting grass stains on his pants like he really gives a damn about that. Barney remembers a dozen jobs where they got a whole lot more dirty, crawling through a sewer somewhere in Colombia, wading hip-deep in mud in a forest in Cambodia, the sand that got into some pretty damn uncomfortable places on the beach in Costa Rica, a whole lot of countries beginning with the letter C where they dragged each other out alive and then took a _really_ long shower afterwards. But Lee bitches as they shoot rifles at tin cans sitting on a wall and Barney's better at that, too. 

Knives, though, are a different thing altogether. Lee's the best with them by far and he's tried to teach him how to do what he does more than once, standing up against his back to make sure he's sighting down the whole length of his arm, correcting his stance with his hands at his hips, and while Barney can hit a stationary target pretty good and pretty reliably though hell, he always could since his days back in the military, he's damn sure knife-throwing's at least as much an art as it is a science. He made the mistake of saying that out loud in Lee's general vicinity once upon a time and Lee grinned and tapped a blade against Barney's chest and asked if that made him an _artist_. Barney grudgingly said he guessed it did. Watching him work, even now, watching him move like that, he's still pretty convinced it does. 

There's an assault course they put together one year and who the hell knows exactly when that was, inside a shitty old warehouse they bought with their share of the proceeds from a job they did one summer. He and Lee spent months on the place, hauling crap in and hauling crap out, stringing crap up and yanking crap down, getting so damn dirty on a daily basis that he felt like his hair and his clothes and his damn eyes were full of dust and grit because they probably were. They blacked out the windows and dug out pits, stretched out tripwires, wired in floodlights and a couple of strobes, pumped in water, drove in two cars and a goddamn bus just to complete the effect. Lee said it reminded him of Afghanistan and Barney thought Beirut, like either of those things was great, then they let it sit for a couple of months afterwards because Lee screwed up his knee and Barney threw out his shoulder, hazard of the job. But after that they ran the course together and even now, six years, seven years later, Lee's the best at it. Barney knows even twenty, thirty, forty years ago, he just wasn't half as agile as Lee still is now. 

Then there's cars they drag race. Then there's motorcycles they road race. Then there's arm wrestling at Tool's place and bench pressing in the gym where they're both members and computer games involving soccer on Lee's couch that Barney does _not_ understand even though Lee seems to know all the players' names. Barney likes to think it's not like Lee's tried to introduce him to the finer points of the offside rule a bunch of times since they met and he conveniently forgets both world cups and how he was meant to cheer for England. But today it's something else. Today there's another competition.

They wound up on the assault course earlier, three days after they got in from some shitty search and rescue job down in Brazil and they ran it, laughing, half out of breath, shoving each other over 'cause having fun with it's always been at least half the point. Lee tripped 'cause hell if either of them could remember where they'd moved the tripwires to the last time and Barney hauled him back up to his feet and they started up the ropes to the mezzanine just to take the zipline back down to the ground again. They landed in a pit of presh-pumped water and in the end Barney wasn't even too far behind, just a couple of yards. Then they went down on their backs in the mud, all dumbass grins and racing pulses. Barney knows one day he'll have to give it up but today is absolutely not that day.

"Either you're getting better or I'm getting worse, old man," Lee said, "and I'm pretty sure it's not you." 

Barney smacked him in the chest with the back of his hand and made him laugh. Lee went up to his feet and held down a hand that Barney took by the wrist and let him hoist him up.

"Didn't your mom ever teach you to respect your elders?" Barney said, and Lee shoved him in the chest with a grin and so Barney shoved him back and maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe it was the blood getting in Barney's eye from some fresh stitches he'd pulled open up above his eye, maybe it was luck or maybe it was just the moon in virgo or some other happy bullshit, but in a flash of something dumb Barney's hands caught the front of Lee's black shirt and Lee's hands caught the hip pockets of Barney's black combat pants and that was it. Lee yanked him in close so hard they damn near tumbled back into the pit of muddy water and Barney kissed Lee or Lee kissed Barney or who the hell knew which. 

They kissed, like all those times Lee 'helped' with his 'knifework' had maybe just been an excuse to get close. They kissed, like communal showers after the end of a job had maybe threatened to take a left turn into something more, like their eyes weren't strictly front and center. They kissed, like the times they'd saved each other's lives had meant something more than general cameraderie. They kissed, pressed up flush against each other, Barney's pulse racing with it, Barney's head reeling with it. They kissed, hard and deep and wet and long and stupid. And then Barney pulled back, gasped a breath and steadied himself, or tried to.

"Didn't we say we weren't gonna do this?" Barney asked, because they had, six years before, one night down past the border in Mexico. They'd fooled around for hours, half dressed but that still meant half naked, half drunk but that still meant half sober, felt each other up over a bottle of cheap tequila till they were both hard in their jeans and ready for more. But Barney stopped it, like a colossal, towering jackass.

Lee shrugged. " _You_ said we weren't gonna do it."

"You agreed."

"You've got a piss-poor understanding of agreement, Barn," Lee said, and he shook his head. "I'd call what I did more like _keeping the party polite_."

It was a revelation because six years ago he'd thought Lee meant it, but maybe that had been the half drunk side talking. He'd thought they'd agreed it'd be too damn complicated, that teammates shouldn't get involved, not like that, not the two of them, so sex was off the table. It was a revelation because half of him had wanted to fuck Lee then and there in some shitty Mexican hotel room and the other half had wanted it shut right down; half of him had wanted Lee to tell him _bullshit_ and go down on his knees and the other half had been desperate for agreement. He still has no damn idea which half was which, which wanted what. It was a revelation and now it'd been revealed, Barney had no clue what to do with it.

"Well, shit," Barney said, his hands still caught in Lee's shirt.

"Yeah, shit," Lee agreed, his hands still caught in Barney's pockets.

And apparently Barney had fucked up, apparently Barney had misread the situation completely because Lee had wanted it, Lee _still_ wanted it, Lee hadn't agreed at all. So he did the only thing he could do: he kissed him again. 

It wasn't a floodgate that opened or a dam that burst or any other shitty water-based metaphor that happened next. The water in the equation was a shower back at Barney's place after a ride in his truck that felt an eon too long, all business in the start 'cause of the mud on their skin but then Lee stepped up close against his back, Lee wrapped his arms around his waist, Lee rested his forehead down between his shoulderblades. Somehow that didn't feel businesslike anymore. It felt personal. It wasn't a surprise, given the way they were touching.

"You're an idiot," Lee said, but the way his cock was pressed up hard to Barney's ass said he didn't give a damn about that. Barney's cock gave an upward start of its own at the feel of it 'cause nothing had changed in six years. It wasn't like Barney just turned the whole thing off. He'd just told himself he should.

"You're just figuring that out now?" Barney said.

Lee snickered. "Yeah, well, I didn't say I was a genius either," he said.

"No kidding."

Lee tugged Barney's wet hair. "Don't push it," he said, but when Barney turned in his arms there was a smile on his face.

They went to bed after, once they'd dried off and Barney had frowned and brushed the stray towel lint out of the sharp stubble on Lee's chin. They went to bed like it was the next natural step and maybe it was because shit, they'd done everything else together over the years. Lee's bare skin under his hands didn't feel weird at all like it might've. Lee's smart mouth that just wouldn't stop flapping was as familiar as it had ever been. Lee's cock felt hot and heavy in his hand, kind of like his own, and it responded just the same as his did. And when he caught the two of them together, stroked them together as they knelt there on the bed with Lee's hands gripping at his shoulders, with Lee's mouth pressed hot at his neck, it really didn't feel like fucking up a friendship the way he'd thought it would before. It didn't feel like losing.

Lee came first, his hips jerking, his fingers digging into Barney's shoulders as his cock pulsed in his hand. Barney came after, the two of them a wet, sweat-slick mess just a half hour out of the shower. Maybe they should've headed back in there but there were tissues on the nightstand that Barney figured would work in a pinch and they stretched out side by side on top of the comforter, quiet but not awkward because aside from the Stonebanks fiasco, awkward just wasn't them. They're still there now, on Barney's bed. He figures he'll ask Lee to stay there 'cause it's not like they've never shared a bed before.

There are times they turn just about everything into a competition. Barney's the best with firearms and Lee's the best with knives. Barney's great behind the wheel and Lee whips his ass on a motorcycle. Lee's the pompous British king of the assault course, but Barney can go one better now. He turns onto his side. He props up his head on one hand and looks down at him.

"I win," Barney says. 

Lee looks up at him, skeptical but amused, skeptical but his interest's piqued. 

"My arse," he replies.

Barney pats said ass, or at least the part of it that's visible. "You finished first." 

A grin spreads across Lee's face. Suddenly they've got a whole new competition, a whole new game to play, and Barney has to wonder why he ever said no in the first place.

Lee grins. "Best two out of three?" he says.


End file.
